Führerbunker


Useful Information

Location: Berlin, south of the Brandenburger Tor, behind Wilhelmstrasse 92.
Open: no restirctions [2006]
Fee: free [2006]
Classification: SubterraneaWorld War II Bunker
Light: n/a
Dimension:
Guided tours:
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
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History

1935 first air raid shelter.
1943 construction starts.
OCT-1944 bunker completed.
MAR-1945 Hitler moves in.
MAY-1945 Hitler commits suicide.
1946 partly destruction by the Red Army.
1980s destroyed during the erection of a housing block.
2006 sign errected.

Description

This is not an underground site, it is a site commemorating an underground site. A strange thing, and it took 60 years to errect a sign which tells about the history of this place. The reason is pretty simple: neither the government of the former GDR nor the government of united Germany wanted to make a monument for Hitler. The big fear was to create a sort of pilgrimage destination for neo-Nazis. However, after such a long time, and with the legitimate wish of German and foreign visitors to see this important place of world history, the city of Berlin installed a huge sign.

The Führerbunker was one of thirteen such underground hideouts built for the German leader during World War II. Another famous Führerbunker was the socalled Wolfsschanze. However, this one was close to the Reichstag in the Capital Berlin. In April 1945, at the end of the war, with Russian troops marching to Berlin, the Führer and several of his staff moved into this bunker. At the end Hitler and his spouse Eva Braun took poison and were cremated on the surface above the bunker. One day later Goebbels and wif killed her six children in the bunker and then adviced the remains SS staff to kill them with a shot in tthe head. This was the end of the terror regime of the Nazis.

There were various attempts to destroy the bunker, most of them failed. It was finally destroyed by the construction of housings during the eighties. The concrete ceiling was removed and the rooms filled with gravel and sand. So there nothing to visit underground. Nevertheless, the private organisation Berliner Unterwelten (Berlin Underworlds), which offers tours into the city's subterranean, tried for years to errect a panel. Finally, probably because of the soccer world championship, the were allowed to do so. And there are good reasons, that transparency and information would demystify the location.

The story of the last days of the Nazi terror is obviously interesting to many people. Books and movies were published about this topic, and the German movie Downfall from 2004 was a worldwide success.